In case you needed another reminder about being careful who you agree to meet up with online, a convict accused of running an elaborate, years-long gay dating scam using cellphones smuggled into an Oklahoma state prison was just ordered to fork over nearly $125,000 to his victims, the Oklahoman reports.
34-year-old Sean Siwek was already serving 20 years in the Lawton Correctional Facility for robbery and assault convictions when he concocted a sophisticated scam using illegally obtained cellphones to create fake dating profiles on a “voice-based dating” service. The name of the specific service has not been reported.
According to prosecutors, Siwek used the phones to connect with unsuspecting straight-identifying men. He would chat them up, pretending to be a male prostitute looking for sex with guys on the DL. One of his aliases was “Devon Jones,” a strapping, young 24-year-old living in Elyria, Ohio.
Related: Four teens charged with running sophisticated Grindr extortion scheme that will make you shudder
How about we take this to the next level?
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After arranging to meet up with the men “for a good time sexually,” Siwek would then call them up claiming to be law enforcement. He would inform them they had been communicating with a minor, then demand they pay him off or be faced with criminal charges, prosecutors alleged.
To get the money, Siwek would instruct his victims to purchase prepaid debit cards then give him the numbers over the phone. According to court records, he defrauded a total of six different victims in four different states out of more than $130,000 between October 2010 and August 2012.
It’s not entirely clear who provided Siwek with the cellphones, or how he managed to keep the operation going for so long without prison officials catching on.
“I’m appalled that this kind of conduct can happen inside a state prison,” U.S. District Judge Robin J. Cauthron said on Tuesday.
Siwek pleaded guilty to wire fraud in 2015. During his sentencing this week, rather than adding anymore time to his 20 year prison sentence, Judge Cauthron credited the two years Siwek spent in two different country jails awaiting his sentencing. He then demanded Siwek repay his victims and be placed under extra federal supervision.
Swiek will be eligible for parole in 2023, but something tells us he’s probably not going to get it.
Related: Man sues Grindr over elaborate sexual harassment scheme orchestrated by his ex
h/t: Oklahoman
ChrisK
Guys on the down low get what they get. Maybe they’ll think twice before cheating on their spouses or find living in the closet comes at a price. This wouldn’t be a problem for them if they’d stop living a lie. This guy actually might be doing them favors.
oddchild1
Yeah; how about you move there and show them how it’s done. Move to Oklahoma and live out and proud and see how you fair. Move to a state where there are no protections; and you can be fired for being gay in most of the state, is planning on passing the most extreme anti-lgbt laws in the country, and where the population happily supports these things. Let’s see how long it takes you to end up like Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain in Oklahoma.
ChrisK
@oddchild1
This isn’t about how you present yourself in your neighborhood like not flying rainbow flag on your house. This was on a sex site. These guys were doing the the standard “I’m straight but curious and/or the girlfriends gone for the wknd” BS. Here’s how you avoid shit like this. Stop chasing after the barely or under aged and drop the I’m straight BS line.
Dateline did a fun show about it one time “To catch a Preditor”. Maybe that’s where he got the idea from.
DMRX
@oddchild1: So living in a conservative state makes it ok to cheat on your wife or not be honest with yourself about who and what you are?
I happen to live in the ultra-conservative Texas, just south of Oklahoma, in a conservative (not big city) area of the state. And I do just fine as gay man about to be married to another man (next month, in fact – YEAH!)
I’m with ChrisK this time. These guys absolutely got what they deserved for being dishonest – and stupid – believing that they were actually in trouble. And let’s not even get into the fact that they’ll never see a penny of that money.
oddchild1
@ChrisK funny how you’re throwing out claims of pedophilia; with no proof; the story says the fake profile was of legal age then after texting back and forth then they got a call saying the profile was that of a child; and nowhere does it say these men were cheating on spouses funny how you’re making all these straw men with no evidence. Once again if it’s such a piece of cake to be gay in a conservative state that has no protections against discrimination or hate crimes then move there and be out and proud and prove how easy it is.
oddchild1
@DMRX funny how all you have are these strawmen “They cheating” when nowhere anywhere does it say they were in relationships. I can say I life in Paris doesn’t make it true; I believe you live in Texas as much as I believe you’re the queen of England.
ChrisK
I’m a little confused though. If you’ve been led to believe you’re talking to a 24 yo then there’s no way this scam can happen. However, if he created some under aged profiles or at least ones that look that way then I can see blackmail very easy.
Mack
The way I understand the article is he told them he was older then after some “chats” he told them he was a minor (even though he wasn’t). That scared them into believing they could do time for “chatting” with a minor. I guess the “chats” were hot and heavy.
DMRX
Neither one of you read the article closely.
When he shifted to the extortion part of his game, he claimed to be law enforcement.
Unfortunately, minors pretending to be older on dating sites and apps is pretty common — and easy to do. Most don’t require any type of age verification, other than you just claiming to be a certain age.
Back when I was still in that random hookup phase of life, if I had any concerns, I had them show me a driver’s license.
The worst part is that websites and apps have have absolutely no legal liability to make sure their users are of legal age.
You’ve got to be careful. One random hookup can ruin your life.
ChrisK
@DMRX
That’s kind of what I thought already. Kids get on these sites all the time. The sites just say you need to be 18. My guess is that he used guys that looked really young so when the extortion time came up it was plausible they could be under aged. I’m always skeptical of guys that list themselves as 18 or look really young. Just common sense to avoid.
Creamsicle
The frightening thing about this is that he would have probably been much harder to track down and convict if he’d used something like bitcoin rather than prepaid visa cards.
JerseyMike
Karma is a b!tch all the way around on this one… The cheaters got screwed but not how they wanted and the thief will be locked up for his full amount of time.. I hope..
natekerchel
For those men to have paid the criminal they must have believed that the ‘client’ was a minor. There is no evidence that they ‘knew’ this before being told by the fake law enforcement person. The one alias named gave an age of 24. But of course as soon as you mention the word ‘minor’ people panic, so it is quite easy to con them. Added to that is the fact that the men are ‘in the closet’ and don’t want to be exposed as gay.
Of course I might find it easy to criticise those men for hypocrisy and living an untruthful life. But I am not them and don’t know their exact circumstances. In reality, I see those men as victims too – victims of a homophobic society that forces people to live that lie. In certain parts of the USA gay men are still open to being blackmailed and abused – well this story is the proof.
So while I tend to agree with Chrisk in general terms about people having to be more honest, I can also understand why that might be difficult for some. I never had any issue with being gay or letting other people know it – but not everyone can be like that. So I have some sympathy for those men. The person who deserves our condemnation is the low-life scammer.